"Most American officials ignored the anti-American signs altogether. Some of the anti-U.S. evidence was even suppressed," Pillsbury writes.

On a routine visit in the 1990s to the CIA translation center in Reston, Virginia, I asked a translator why so few examples of Chinese leaders’ anti-American tirades appeared in its reports. Almost all U.S. officials relied on translations from the center to follow what was on the Chinese leadership’s mind, because so few can actually read—and grasp the many crucial nuances of—the Chinese language.

“That’s easy,” she replied. “I have instructions not to translate nation- alistic stuff.”

I was puzzled by this. “Why?” I asked her.

“The China division at headquarters told me it would just inflame both the conservatives and left-wing human rights advocates here in Washington and hurt relations with China.”

Pillsbury, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, "was the Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning and responsible for implementation of the program of covert aid known as the Reagan Doctrine," according to his biography.

I hereby nominate Dick Cheney's answer to Chuck Todd's question about a United Nations official who's called for the criminal prosecution of U.S. interrogators, as the 2014 Sunday Show Answer of the Year:

CHENEY: I have little respect for the United Nations, or for this individual, who doesn't have a clue and had absolutely no responsibility for safeguarding this nation and going after the bastards that killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

For most of last week, the report on enhanced interrogations produced by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dominated headlines. To the extent that there was a debate at all, it was one-sided. News coverage routinely described the findings as the “Senate torture report,” often failing even to note that it was written exclusively by Democratic staff or account for the differences between techniques used as part of the CIA program and abuses committed outside of that program.

What follows is the document written by Jason Beale -- a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized a forthcoming report, scheduled to be released today, prepared by the Democratic staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

From the Nov. 24, 2014, issue: The enhanced techniques work.

The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by other means.

What follows is the document written by Jason Beale -- a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized a forthcoming report prepared by the Democratic staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The enhanced techniques work.

The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by other means.

Yesterday, the Washington Post had a lengthy report on how former CIA director Leon Panetta was sending out copies of his book nearly a month before it cleared the CIA's internal revue process to ensure that no sensitive national security information was being revealed. According to the Post, Panetta clashed with his former agency repeatedly throughout the process.

Why James Risen may be headed for jail.

After nearly four years of procedural delay, the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling is set to open shortly. Sterling was indicted at the end of 2010 for leaking information about a top-secret CIA operation to James Risen of the New York Times in violation of the espionage statutes. It is difficult to regard Sterling as in any sense a whistleblower, though, predictably, he calls himself such.